In upstate Western New York, the Steelhead and Lake-run trout fishing stays hot! The Salmon River through Pulaski has been fishing well, and up to now, the weather has, for the most part, cooperated. Right now the Salmon is flowing at 450-610cfs through Pineville with a water temperature of 39 degrees. Yesterday, the afternoon was warmer, calm and dry with a decent amount of hookups and numerous multi-fish anglers. For fly fishermen, egg patterns and nymph patterns are accounting for much of the tally, with some fish also being taken by swinging small streamers and steelhead patterns. For spinning rigs, small beads, blue or pink egg sacs and pink worms have also been very effective. The upper and lower ends of the river ......

The late fall/early winter is beginning to have its way with our Catskill and Connecticut trout rivers. Although you can fish through the winter in certain sections of the branches of the Delaware, and also in theFarmington and other rivers (although all these river systems become catch and release only until next spring) dry fly action becomes limited as most of the hatches are now underwater as the nymphs mature and await their spring and summer debuts. On all these rivers there are still a few Olives that can be found with an occasional fish on them, as well as winter Caddis. And yes, there are always calm winter days when you can happen upon a flat where, magically, there are heads to be had. But most consistent trout fisherman are fishing small nymphs (BWO #20, Caddis larva and Pupa #18, Copper John #18-22, Zebra #20-#24, BH Pheasant Tail #18-#24, Prince #18-#24 which are producing most of the action.

Long Island Sound: Although we're in the deep freeze today, the past week was actually rather mild and there has been some great fishing both in our rivers and in the Salt as well. If you were able to get out on a beach (any beach) on L.I. Sound this past week, chances are you were rewarded with some off-the-hook Striper fishing. I spent three days at Sherwood Island where action off the beach was lights-out. The peanut bunker were pinned along the beach and the Stripers were on them. Perfect conditions for a fly-rodder as 20-30 foot casts were the maximum distances you had to throw. With the full moon, the high tides were massive, and best action early in the week seemed to be a couple of hours before high tide.

Fishing in Long Island Sound continues to be strong. Before Monday's storm, fish were stacked onto the beaches from Stamford to Fairfield chasing peanut bunker in the wash - and us beach bums were crushing them. This morning I fished Compo Beach in Westport for the first time since the storm. (I wanted to fish Sherwood Island State Park but it was closed due to damage from the storm.) The Peanut Bunker were still there and so were the Bass. These are mostly schoolies with a few good fish underneath the fray. I saw a couple of bass that would have been in the 20lb+ category but the dozen fish I took were all schoolies.